<p>"If you thought making a donation to your alma mater would help raise its rank in the U.S. News & World Report best colleges list, would you reach for your credit card?</p>
<p>Northwestern University is one of the universities betting its alumni will. In a recent e-mail message titled "US News & World Report Rankings and Alumni Giving," the No. 12-ranked university made a direct appeal to graduates to think about what they could do to help Northwestern claim a higher spot. "If we, as undergraduate alumni, increased our giving to 40 percent annually, we could radically improve Northwestern's standing in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. ... Your gift of any size has a direct impact on these rankings." Northwestern says its rate of giving for undergraduate alumni is about 31 percent."</p>
<p>Ugh. I’m disgusted. Whats with people and US News, why does everything need to be ‘ranked’ just have a tier system, you really can’t compare some colleges.</p>
<p>On the other hand, great marketing scheme. I bet someone from Kellogg came up with it.</p>
<p>“If you thought making a donation to your alma mater would help raise its rank in the U.S. News & World Report best colleges list, would you reach for your credit card?”</p>
<p>… something that a number of “fast-climbing” schools discovered in the past years. The strategy has worked extremely well in Illinois and New York!</p>
<p>^Which “fast-climbing” schools in IL were you thinking? Northwestern was ranked as high as 9th/10th three times in the 90s and has been mostly stuck around its current position in most other years.<br>
Other than the potential risk of getting caught for producing fradulent stats, perhaps COHE is having it backward as far as the focus goes? That is, this is really about raising money rather than ranking.</p>
<p>This is lame. They should drop down the rankings just because of it. Rankings don’t mean anything. We all know Northwestern is pretty dang good.</p>
<p>^Yea, I want that to happen too. Alumni giving is lame. Isn’t that some schools decided to exclude unreachable alumni from the total (the denominator)?</p>
<p>northwestern cares so much about the rankings because everyone on this website cares so much about the rankings. they are forced to care because a ton of top students (hello, this entire website) actually give a *****…so stop complaining and stop being hypocritical. my friends were on the committee that started this campaign and its the only thing that got me to donate. unfortunately, it matters. lamentable reality but reality nonetheless.</p>
<p>The rankings are no different than what we are doing here people. And what we do at work and home. We are all social conscious. (Its the direct reason our nation is in so much trouble…because people will do anything to appear to be keeping up with the neighbors, and avoid being considered a loser or losing ground.)</p>
<p>Which is why the USNWR rankings need to get gone. Enough is enough.</p>
<p>Not at all. USNews does a remarkable job in compiling information. Without the push from the organizations that brought us the CDS, students would be mostly left in the dark. The problems faced by USNews is that garbage-in means garbage-out and that the people led by Bob Morse do not have the courage to confront the cheaters and abusers nor the desire to recognize the gamesmanship that goes in the subjective survey parts. </p>
<p>The problem is NOT with the rankings; the problem is with the schools’ lack of ethics and transparency.</p>
<p>“The problems faced by USNews is that garbage-in means garbage-out and that the people led by Bob Morse do not have the courage to confront the cheaters and abusers nor the desire to recognize the gamesmanship that goes in the subjective survey parts.”</p>
<p>It’s all subjective. I don’t trust all of the so called objective numbers either. I’m certain that there is plenty of gamesmanship garbage going on there as well.</p>
<p>About a month or so ago, a student solicited me for a donation and made the point about boosting NU’s rating. It turned me off. Really, being one of the top schools in the country is enough for me. It’s not necessary for NU to go to #8 or #5 for me to feel good about it, have fond memories and plenty of school spirit. Trying too hard and caring too much about the ranking is tacky.</p>
Northwestern was ranked as high as 9th/10th three times in the 90s and has been mostly stuck around its current position in most other years.<br>